They warn that Claude's private chats appeared in Google results

Conversations that users of Claude had shared with specific people appeared indexed in the results of Google, according to a user in the subreddit ClaudeAI. The discovery raised concerns among users of the chatbot from Anthropic.

A Google search under the shared chat address of the platform returned numerous conversations that users had chosen to share only with specific individuals, and not publicly.

How the chat sharing feature of Claude works

The sharing feature of Claude creates a snapshot of a conversation and generates a link that can be sent to another person. Anyone with that link can view the shared chat, although they do not access the rest of the account or other non-shared conversations.

A search of type “site:claude.ai/share” on Google showed a list of those conversations, making them discoverable without someone directly sending the link.

What type of information was exposed

Reddit users reported finding chats about personal, professional, and potentially sensitive topics. Some claimed to have found data such as cryptocurrency wallets and Social Security numbers.

The site ZDNet claimed to have found conversations that could have legal or financial consequences for the individuals involved.

What Anthropic responded about the episode

Anthropic rejected the idea that Claude made these links discoverable by itself. A spokesperson for the company told Android Authority:

“We give people control over sharing their Claude conversations publicly, and in line with our privacy principles, we do not share chat directories or sitemaps with search engines like Google. These shareable links are not guessable or discoverable unless people decide to share them themselves”, he explained.

The spokesperson added: “When someone shares a conversation, they are making that content publicly accessible, and like any other public content on the web, it can be archived by third-party services”.

What Google said about the indexing of chats

Google, for its part, dismissed having independently exposed those pages. A spokesperson for the company pointed out to Android Authority:

“Neither Google nor any other search engine controls which pages are made public on the web, and these pages were indexed in many search engines. We give site owners clear controls to decide whether pages can be crawled or indexed, and we always respect those directives”, he stated.

Google added that the URLs may have been published on social media or forums, where search engines could have found them. The company also emphasized that site owners have tools to prevent pages from appearing in the search engine.

How the situation was resolved

Searches stopped returning the same set of results shortly after the Reddit thread gained attention. According to ZDNet, some shared links were still indexed on Google that same morning, although they seem to have been removed by the time of publication.

How to manage shared chats in Claude

Conversations in Claude are private by default, so this episode would not affect chats for which no sharing link was ever created.

Those who have shared any conversation can review those links by going to Settings > Privacy > Shared Chats and selecting "Manage," where it is possible to deactivate active links.